Barlo Hew was a stranger in a strange land.

Well, not truly. The mortals changed and varied, but the cultivators stayed the same. Fashion changed in some places, but that also stayed the same. Cultivators, for all their power, were copycats.

The lower ranks copied the immortals, the immortals copied the gods, and the gods copied whatever bastard ruled above them.

The rich copied the cultivators and the poor did the same. There were variances here in there, but the soul of the sentiment was there.

Face, politics, power. It was all treated the same way.

That was why he was beyond shocked to find two fifth ranks talking in a small village on the outskirts of the region.

Barlo was new to this region. Normally, traversing this far out into the wilds was something only immortals would dare to do. The beasts out here were weak but many. The sparse qi in this area, along with the already established human region and demonic stench kept the people of the region safe.

It was one of many foothold regions that served as rest spots for some of the larger region nations even further away. There was low-quality

qi here, a lack of strength or treasures, and an egregious lack of talent.

Even the Void Blade Empire only taxed the region as a formal action. No resource born of this place could be worth the waste of an immortal’s time to come gather it.

And Barlo himself was at the cusp of the fourth rank. It was nothing grand outside of this region but something worth noting for anyone within it.

So Barlo had treasures, some he bought and some he took. One of the more important treasurers he wore at all times, was the Spectacles of Dark Deception. They were a pair of reading spectacles with a dark tint on the glass. A tint so dark people would have thought Barlo blind at first glance.

The spectacles were circular and cut off the sides of his eyes as well, limiting his vision. They gave him an air of strangeness and a foreign aura. But most importantly they gave him the ability to go undetected by anyone below the immortal rank.

That was the reason he had been able to run through the wilds unbothered. Even the spirit beasts within the wilds couldn’t detect his presence. And their more important secondary feature heightened his senses beyond limits.

And while he looked like a forgettable man sitting in a restaurant in the middle of a mortal village, slowly chipping away at his bread and meat. He was anything but.

“He let you live,” the older man commented. “That is one mercy.”

“It was an insult,” the younger-looking man replied. “A reminder of my weakness. It was his way of saying he sees me as such a nonfactor that my death would be more trouble than its worth.”

Barlo kept eating. The fifth ranks had done well to hide their aura, but there were other things that spoke of their power. The precision of their limbs for one. Mortals were clumsy and inefficient. They didn't control their muscles to this degree. The posture, the eyes, and the way they carried themselves spoke of centuries of power and practice.

Cultivators fought with their bodies, and controlling it even out of combat was second nature.

Barlo himself was at the fourth rank. If they were at or below that level, he’d know, no matter how well they tried to hide it. And if they were an immortal, well then they wouldn’t be here.

He could run, but that would be stupid. They’d notice that right away. Someone of their rank could sense almost a hundred miles out, and even further than that with practice.

No, Barlo had been in this situation before, with both beasts and not men.

He knew what he had to do.

Just sit still and eat his soup. Silence was his friend here.

“That damn bastard. What a waste of a man, what an empty thing to be, an immortal with no pride.”

They whispered this, talking hushedly in a room full of mortals, but Barlo heard them as if they were right next to his ear.

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An immortal? Here?

Barlo frowned.

He didn’t like immortals. They were too prissy. Too fussy.

“He came with a mortal. An old man.”

“How strange,” the older man replied.

“And he mentioned you.”

Their food was untouched, but had they been eating, the older man would have choked.

“Me? What? How? If you spoke of my-”

“I said nothing.”

Barlo also said nothing. But he wanted to say a lot. Why bother him? Why meet in a restaurant? There were tens of thousands of square miles of unmonitored wilderness for them to use. Why gather here to talk of such private and important business?

He had no desire to hear it.

But Barlo knew why. To them, this was the wilderness. To be among mortals was to be among insects, and no one cared if an ant heard their secrets. This was a setting, they preferred over trees and rocks.

And they trusted their own power too much to ever doubt their abilities.

Barlo ate. At least the noodles here weren’t bad. Many villages had their own cuisine and this one was no different. The noodles were boiled in a mixture of bone broth and local herbs and spices and it was worth his time more than the ramblings of two backwater cultivators.

“He’s arrogant,” the younger one spoke. “He appears out of nowhere then he declares the whole of the Great Desert Strip to be his? And those rules, those inane useless rules. To fight is the way of the cultivator, to strip us of that right is an insult.”

“How did he know then?” The older man asked. “How could he know about us?”

“I don’t quite know, some divination technique, I assume. I felt it touching my soul.”

Two lovers denied their right to be with each other? How interesting, Barlo thought.

“Does he know of our plans? I cannot have him interfere any more than he already has.”

Plotting power-hungry bastards. How boring.

Barlo sighed and put his spoon into the soup. They wouldn’t come after him, not unless they could see through his treasures effect, and there were no chances of that happening. He just hated having his meal spoiled by some prissy pissy bastards.

He slurped. At least the soup was good.

“And what of the Great Desert Strip?” The older man asked. “Is it true what they say about it being guarded?”

The younger man nodded.

“It is guarded. He says no violence is allowed within the place. I couldn’t sense anything, but his senses must be covering the whole strip.”

Now that was interesting.

“Why did the crippled bastard choose to settle here of all places,” the younger man said.

“Who knows,” the older man replied. “He probably wanted to find a place where no one would bother him.”

“What do you suppose his dao is anyway? I’ve never heard of a dao breaking beyond the immortal rank.”

“It’s a rare thing but it does happen. We have some old records within the sect, but not an immortal breaking their dao. It frightens me that such a thing is even possible.”

“Do you think Gai Jin broke his dao?” The younger man replied.

“No. He’s still a monk, I’m sure of it.”

“You’re that certain?”

“He has immense talent.”

There was a moment of silence as the two men contemplated something.

“Do you think he’s let it go by now? It seems trivial to fight over such a mortal. Surely a price can be paid to settle the debt?”

“He’s a monk of virtue,” the old man replied. “He will not forget the misdeed so easily.”

“And you are not?” The younger man replied.

“I am. And I’ve come to regret my choice over the years… but she was a whore. She was spoiling the boy. A person of such talent should not be raised by such a woman.”

The younger other man snorted.

“So you killed her because she was unseemingly?”

“She was an impurity on a bright and clear jade. If it wasn’t for the other one…”

“Is that why you let her flee?”

“Yes. Gai Jin was already rebelling back then. She had already ruined him.”

“Why not kill her still?”

“It would be unseemingly,” the monk replied.

“Is face truly the only thing you care for?”

“Virtue shines among sins. My actions and nature reflect myself and my sect. If I, the pinnacle of the Bloody Fist Sect am not seen as virtuous, then who can be?”

Barlo almost laughed at the conversation. What a strange pair. Face and Ego. Pride worn on the outside and in.

But what interested him even more was this immortal.

An immortal with a broken dao? Now that was rare. Daos could break for many reasons, but the most common reason was a refusal to execute. If your dao was justice and your actions were not, then either your dao would break or it would change. But even then, daos were like people constantly changing and filtering as a person did. Unless you violated the very fundamentals of your dao very quickly then breaking it was near impossible.

And even then. Good could turn to evil, and evil could turn to good. You could rebuild or rediscover what you were. Barlo’s dao was greatness. He was great, this was undeniable.

But if he were to one day suffer and break his dao, he could rebuild it. A dao, a way of life was not a singular thing. It was made out of many things. Your understanding of the world, the truths of life and nature, all you knew, and all you wanted were a part of it.

Unless you discarded your very self or gave up a core part of yourself, then you would not break your dao.

But someone else could. That was much more common.

And yet, this immortal spoke of rules and actions, even interfering in people’s affairs. Would a man with a broken dao do that? Barlo did not know.

But he wanted to.

The two kept speaking. They talked of plots and betrayal. They talked of demons and wars.

But mostly they spoke of power and how to obtain it.

They were two foolish men who wanted nothing but power and greatness.

Two things that would come naturally to Barlo Hew.

Eventually, he left and feigned sleep in one of the rooms above. Their sense would reach his private room. He waited till they left, then left the village, heading for another place about thirty miles from this one.

Once there, he rested and after a bit of thought, made way for the Great Desert Strip. It had a strange immortal there, after all, surely it would be worth his time.